How do I stop paying for modem rental?

[royalfabulana]

I like to keep my costs down as much as possible. Is buying a modem (and stop renting one from Sonic) a good way to do that? What kind would I need and how do I actually go about doing this?

[aaronchang]

Call and request to return the modem.

Depending on what you have ADSL, VDSL, FTTN (required), it will depend on what you should get. Then comes the part of x1 or x2 (bonded fusion).

Check out the Access sub-forum. Many have used brands like Zhone, Zyxel and what not.

My ZTE modem provided by Sonic in 2011 died 3 months ago. I bought a Netgear DM200 which covers ADSL2+ and VDSL2 technology.
A month later I decided to upgrade my connection to VDSL2 (option inside the Sonic member tools or by calling). This along brought the modem rental fee.

Anyway, I decided to keep the Pace modem+router that Sonic provided as a just in case... well that just in case came in handy.
I had nothing but issues on my line that appeared out of nowhere after the 1st week of VDSL, stability and performance issues.

With the Pace modem connected, Support was able to run full diagnostics on my line and the first tech changed some items inside the home at no cost.
Will wait until I can confirm I have no issues before I return the Sonic modem cause it's just been a nightmare.

[ankh]

> nightmare

Been there, had that.
Try asking for a "co-op visit" where both ATnT and Sonic techs look at your connection simultaneously.

I got ATnT techs at the house, then I dialed up Sonic support on my cell phone and handed the phone to the ATnT guys. The techs spent hours talking to each other, and cleared up problems going all the way from the street pole back to the nearest central office where some piece of hardware related to Sonic's fusion service had to be swapped out.

Before that, on repeated visits, ATnT blamed Sonic or inside wiring, and Sonic blamed ATnT (and in the end, it was really ATnT).